Physicists win Nobel for breakthroughs in optics

No one swallowed dangerous bugs. No one got any ulcers. They didn't need to. The winners of the 2005 Nobel prize for physics were recognised for their work on the fundamental properties of light.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday that Roy Glauber of Harvard University will share the prize for his work in quantum physics and optics with John Hall of the University of Colorado in Boulder and Theodor Hänsch of the Max Planck Institute in Garching, Germany for their work on laser spectroscopy, enabling physical phenomena to be measured with unprecedented precision.

Glauber's 1963 work focused on understanding optical phenomena in terms of quantum physics, giving rise to the field of quantum optics. His insights made it possible, for instance, to describe the differences between hot sources of light such as light bulbs (a mixture of frequencies and phases) and lasers, which have a specific ...

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